Author's note: I think I finally decided which girl Trau is going to go after. I guess I'll have to go with Joatha. (because it'll be easier for me to write in the story) Well, here goes. And really, I'm sorry for the HUGE delay in updating. School sucks. And I'm pointing out the obvious again. Anywho, on with the fic:

Chapter 10 – Confession

            I stood there with my arms around Rikku, but something was…wrong. I felt like a hypocrite for displaying feelings that were totally false. I felt a single tear running down my cheek, and it ticked me. I wanted to wipe it away, but of course I couldn't spare a hand at the moment. Rikku and I broke our embrace, and I was a little relieved, almost. I put up a hand to wipe my face, but I made it look like I was just wiping sleep from my eyes, or something of the sort. I closed my eyes, and looked down at the ground again while I walked away. Nothing seemed to be right with my world at the moment, but I intended to fix it. I thought of where I would go if I was Joatha, and then a revelation hit me. I stopped, and I knew where she would be. When I got to the cliff near the trading post, sure enough, there she was, sitting with her feet dangling over the edge. I just watched her for a minute, though, because I had no idea what to say, or even if I did, how to say it. So, when I had gathered the resolve to get myself in motion, I went to her and sat down beside her, just as I had done when we met. I hoped it would symbolize something, a special event between us, something special in our relationship. Only this time, she looked up right away, but when she saw it was me, she immediately made it clear that she wasn't in the mood to talk by immediately turning her head away.

"Jo, I need to talk to you." I said. Her response was only to stand, and she started to leave. I got up as quickly as I could, and put my hand on her shoulder, another symbol, trying to gently pierce the wall of black ice that had formed between us.

"Jo, please. Don't leave. It's really important." I pleaded, though I was trying not to sound too desperate. She turned around and stared at me with a look as cold as an arctic wind. She shoved my hand off of her neck, and started to walk away again.

"Let me say something, dammit!" I yelled.

"Okay, so just say it already and let me go!" she replied, giving in to my request in exasperation.

"Joatha, I love you." I declared, as I showed off the most serious, sincere look in my expansive arsenal of expressions. There was an almost eternal silence afterward, and hoped that the three magical words hadn't become a silence spell since I last checked. She took a few steps toward me, and I began to hope that I had finally done something right for a change. My suspicions were proved correct when the cold expression literally melted off of her face, and she nearly leaped on me. We embraced, and she said,

"I love you, too."

Girls and their mood swings. Fifteen seconds before, she was glaring at me like she would lynch me on the spot if she could. How it had all changed so quickly, I didn't know. Now she was hugging me and kissing my cheek like there was no tomorrow. Of course, with everything that was going on, there might not be a tomorrow. It was kind of a morbid thought, though, so I disregarded it and concentrated all of my attention on Joatha. Quite a matter of demand, of course. What else would command more attention than the girl that I love, in my arms? If there's an answer to that question, please, by all means, I'd very much like to know it. We kissed softly, and just kind of…stood there. Silence again. This whole quiet routine was beginning to get to me.

"So…I guess that…" she started, breaking the notably awkward silence.

"What?" I replied, rather intelligently.

"I guess that it's safe to say that you aren't interested in Rikku, like I thought you were?" she asked.

"Oh, so that's what this was all about, the walking away and being mad at me, huh?" I asked playfully, knowing full well that was, of course, the issue. I didn't need an answer to that ridiculous question, but I was just prodding along, trying to get as much information as possible.

"Well, I guess you could say that." she said sheepishly, turning a bright shade of crimson, though barely visible in the dim moonlight.

"That." I said.

"What?" she queried, completely confused.

"You said I could say that. So I did. What's so difficult to understand?" I countered sarcastically. Her response to my idiotic joke was a facepalm and a shake of her head. And then, not to be ignored, a hysterical outburst of laughter. "Leave it to you to ruin a serious moment like this, Trau!"  she said between breaths. I rolled my eyes and snickered, and then I joined her in splitting my sides and nearly rolling on the ground. When we both finally managed to calm down and fend away the threat of asphyxiation from laughing too hard, there beside us stood the gang. I think we made quite a bit more of a racket than we intended to.

"What's so funny, ya?" asked Wakka, voicing the thought on their minds.

"Yeah, you're laughing like a couple of morons over here!" Tidus said. Damn him.

"A couple, yes." I said, making a very vague reference to my newfound relationship. "But it appears to me that if you find this funny without hearing the joke, you're the moron." I countered, piquing at his patience. I received another of his infamous death glares in reply.

"Don't you have anything better to do than insult me?" he asked, fire gleaming in his eyes.

"Yes, actually, I do. I could humiliate you, I could scorn at your lack of intelligence, I could recite some very embarrassing blackmail, I could plot to make your life miserable, I could tell some very funny jokes that I've made up to annoy you…"

"Please. That's quite enough. I think we all get the point at how little of a life you have." Tidus interrupted, clearly annoyed. So, my mission completed, I decided to stop playing games with his mind and suggest something interesting for us all to do in celebration. Even though the others weren't about to find out what exactly it was that they were celebrating.

"…or we could go have a barbeque. What do you say? I'm cooking!" I said enthusiastically.

"You? Cooking? So that means I'm definitely not eating." Tidus declared.

"Oh c'mon! I'm cooking too!" Joatha said, more to me than anyone else. Although it drew the consent of Tidus to eat. And drew some curious stares from the party when she was clinging on me, essentially begging to help. At least none of them had the gall to ask anything. Except for…guess who…none other than Tidus.

"Wait, so is there a thing between you two?" he asked nonchalantly.

"Define thing, Tidus. If you mean air, yes. A blade of grass, yes. A bug, probably. Fabric, yeah. Seriously. Be more clear in your references." I chided sarcastically, although this time, it was for general amusement, made obvious by the amiable smile I wore on my face. It must have worked, because he even laughed. But still, the question was unavoidable. So I looked at Joatha. Without saying a word, we consented to reveal it to them. No sense hiding anything from our friends, after all.

"Yeah. I guess there is." I said, scratching the back of my head.

~SHOCKED SILENCE~

"What?"

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Whee! What a dumb way to end a chapter. Anyways, it was short, but another shall follow very soon. The barbeque! Woohoo!